- City staffer Gord Moodie plead guilty to drunk driving in a car owned by a local development company. And it's the same developer he allegedly took a bribe from. You'll recall he was charged by the Ontario
Provincial Police last year for corruption and breach of trust. They allege he
took a $5,000 cheque from a developer. His day in court is coming up. No word yet on what the city plans to do about Moodie's conduct. ETA: A couple posters mentioned I should name the development company here, it's Vrancor Real Estate Corp. which shows Denis Vranich as president.

- The budget was approved at 1.7 per cent, the lowest increase since amalgamation. That's 55 bucks extra for the average homeowner.

- Council froze the pay of non-union staff this year, but promised no layoffs.

I'm just heading off to council tonight and will update if more news (or drama) breaks.

a) In respect to the 16.5 million dollars from the province, I am sure the Premier gets tired walking past the Mayor who has his "begging" cup out, asking for alms. If the Mayor, and his inefficent predecessors, had been more intelligent and less pompous and ego-manical, and ran the City properly, the City would be in better financial shape and not have to beg every year;

b) Council freezing their salaries for this year is the only intelligent and proactive action this, and previous, Councils have ever done. Hamilton City Council has never led by example, choosing instead to exempt themselves and expect the peons below them to follow like lambs to the slaughter;

c) The Moodie saga just rolls on and on. edit

d) A 1.7 % budget increase...see "b"...:

e) If City Council has frozen the pay of non-union staff, expect either a small riot from, or a mass exodus of, staff. Management does like not being able to not rape and pillage the City's finances, and staff does not like not getting paid for work they do not do.

Has Council finally closed the barn door so the horse cannot get out?

Perhaps.

However, the barn has burned down long ago, and the horse was shot and sold to the glue factory even longer ago.

McGuinty giving instead of loaning is a clear sign that he will be on his last legs in a few years time. Spend spend spend-heck he might as well be on Hamilton Council. He shows no signs period of leadership when the chips are down.PERIOD. Freeze council salaries? You mean they were looking at another increase in the first place? They just jacked the stipend from 50 or so (with a portion tax free) to 80 or so with nothing tax free. So this is a meaningless move. Leadership would have been to take a 5 to 10 percent cut until further notice.I promoted this previously on this site but no councillor had the guts to show any leadership. As well no council should be allowed to bump their salary during a term of office.It could be promoted but cannot take place until the next term. That way we, who pat the freight, can make the decision. Sound fair to you? No signs of leadership. PERIOD. As for Gord Moodie-the damage from a PR point of view is done-regardless of court outcome- He needs to move on or be shuffled to some city hall basement job where he can't do any more damage.Will any leadership come forward on this issue? Not likely. Great guy to have representing your downtown business redevelopment efforts.Somebody should start a sitcom based on this outright buffoonery
coming out of the local political scene. Lets hear from you bloggers as to who could play the various characters on council. Just for fun!!

The province gives the city $16.5 million and taxes still go up 1.7%. What a joke. The city is living in a false economy and one day we will have to all pay much much more.
Isn't the developer linked to Moodie the same guy that councillor Bratina promotes?

The Moodie story is hilarious and disgusting all rolled into one. Although Nicole, I think it's definitely worth mentioning the name of the developer- Vrancor/the Vranich Family. Not just "a local development company". They own the Sheraton, half of Hess Village, a parking lot on the corner of main and bay (which bylaw staff have charged as an illegal lot), and the old federal building which they've yet to develop.

If there was anything inappropriate about the relationship between Gord Moodie and the developers, it's not just Moodie that needs to face the music. If that is proven to be the case, I'll be thoroughly disappointed in council if Darko Vranich is not forced to return every penny of city money he is currently using to fund projects, and some penalty for the money his company received in the past when the loans program was run by Moodie. (Nicole's note: The city does not pay out loans until projects are 60 per cent underway). I'll also be thoroughly disappointed in Bob Bratina if he continues to vouch for both Moodie and Vranich as he has so many times in the past, and if he doesn't offer residents a full apology for giving them such credit over the years. If you search through spectator articles using "Vranich Bratina" as the query, you'll see what I mean. His relationship with Darko Vranich makes me uncomfortable as a Ward 2 resident.

I'm sure some people sympathetic to the development industry in this city will say "oh well, at least they're investing in downtown". I don't care how desperate we are for new development in the core, we don't need to deal with anyone who won't show us some basic respect. We deserve much better.

The 16.5 million covers social services that the City is forced to provide by the province. Seeing as the province was happy to send all the social cases to Hamilton and Toronto when it was running the show, we now have a problem as now that municipalities pay for social services we end up paying for poor people from all over the province while other municipalities pay nothing. What's worse is because these municipalities have such low social services their poor come to Hamilton and Toronto where we are already mandated to have high levels of social services. If the province didn't pay I'd say cut the 16.5 million in social spending, and tell the poor to whine to McGuinty.

I sense a lot of hostility towards City Council. As Council continually highlights, they are not rocket scientists. They are just ordinary folks with ordinary skills do the best job they are capable of.
I don't think any of them are doing harm intentionally.

Given the fact that we signaled that we were willing to take a loan, and got a grant instead, it begs the question as to how astute we are in dealing with other levels of government. Obviously, not very.

Also troubled about the "cap in hand" approach being normalized.

Councilors Froze Their Salaries

It was a good message. Good leadership from the Mayor in the first instance and also good leadership from Bratina.

Gord Moodie- I don't know the man . But I have no respect for drunk drivers. Ask anyone who has lost a child to a drunk driver if there truly is a decision to be made in these instances.

1.7%- good outcome. 16.5 million bail out in play. Not an atonomous outcome.

I don't understand how someone can refer to personal problems being experienced by an an individual as "hilarious" or "disgusting".

I asked our staff to comment on the claims made in this site, and was informed that NO money has been approved, loaned or advanced to Dennis Vranich. Vrancor, owned by Darko Vranich, had a loan approved for the Federal Building which was withdrawn because of inaction. An approval is on file for the Hilton Suites at the HMP site, but money does not flow until 60 per cent of the building is completed, along with other requirements. There may have been a loan with regard to Staybridge Suites, but Vrancor is not involved with that property. The statements made in this blog regarding "money to fund projects" can easily be refuted by a simple examination of the facts, which are a matter of public record. Nicole could if she wished, easily verify the information which I provided to her but was not included in 'Nicole's Note'. So the phrase "every penny of money he is currently using to fund projects" is completely irrelevant in this discussion, but was allowed by the editor to stand. The other personal comments are not worth reply.

It was very interesting to read the article in the Spec this morning, one gets the feeling that no matter what the law is, meaning two drunk driving offenses, no G license, no job, that there will be some sort of "loophole" and this person will keep their job.

Yet a temp worker who has a family emergency, calls in and is terminated, no notice, no severance, not even EI benefits for working for over a year. A worker is thrown into abject poverty, why?

Why are wome workers protected, yet others are not? Where is the fairness?

Bob, First of all, I will gladly refer to drunk driving as disgusting. Driving drunk isn't just a "personal problem". It's a behaviour with potentially severe consequences to the public. And I guess in a dark way, yes, I do find municipal-level ineptitude and allegations of corruption hilarious sometimes. In the kind of way where you laugh so hard you cry.

My apologies if I've in fact made an error in regards to how many projects Vrancor has completed with use of city loans- I had an impression that they had received more. But, from what I know, Vrancor did receive a $2.1 Million dollar loan to aid in converting the old postal depo into The Staybridge. Vrancor has in the past benefitted from the loan program, yes? If I'm in error in that regard, I'll gladly remove that aspect from the discussion.

What I won't remove from this discussion is my concern as a resident that you seem to continually vouch for a developer who in my opinion doesn't seem to have respect for our framework of municipal by-laws. We have a by-law that states property owners can't tear down buildings and replace them with parking lots. The city has charged them, but guaranteed tomorrow morning, cars will still be parked on the former HMP site, as they have for quite awhile now, even though they were sent warning letters from by-law staff over a year ago. According to Nicole's article in the June 3rd 2008 edition of the Spec, you didn't consider enforcing the by-law as a priority in this case because of the "pending development" on the site. Pending indeed.

You may not see this as a big deal- on the surface maybe it's not. However, It's symbolic of the attitude some people have towards the rules and bylaws in this city- whether in regards to process, development, or influence. If it turns out to be true that Vrancor made an effort to buy influence from City Hall in one way or another, that would signal to me that they don't have respect for our city and the basic guidelines upon which we all expect it to operate. I'll say it again: we deserve much better.

Lastly Bob, I don't know which "personal comments" I've made which "are not worth reply". I'm a resident of your Ward, and I'm voicing my concerns about how you operate as an elected official. You may not want to respond to my concerns, but voicing those concerns doesn't amount to a personal attack. It's feedback from one of your constituents who cares deeply about the impact of your daily decisions as my ward councillor. Now, please stop arguing with bloggers and get back to work.

Nicole Macintyre

Nicole MacIntyre is the queen of kings. A married mother of two boys, including the world's former worst sleeper, she's also a reporter and parenting columnist at the Hamilton Spectator. A devotee of the 'whatever works' approach to child-rearing, Nicole has learned to never say "I'll never" when it comes to parenting.